Hanging out in Baltimore
I’m in Baltimore for work and decided to spend the weekend with quilt friends. Amy was so kind to let me stay with her and her family. She even put a nice brunch together with some guild friends. It was so nice.
We went to Savage Mill and I was able to go to Queen’s Ink and the Treasure Trove antique linen store there. I could have spent a fortune there. We also stopped at Seminole Sampler, one of the best quilt shops in the country.
I had a great time. I hope to come back for the West River Retreat in November.
No, I haven’t fallen off the planet…
I’d love to think you’re siting there wondering “Gee, where in the heck is Cheryl? She hasn’t posted on her blog in a while.” Ok, that’s what I hope you are doing.
Well, I got called into the home office suddenly, to work on the big project. (The points of data are not making a beautiful line.)
So, when I get back home, I’ll have a big update for you, including this and last week’s weekly quilt, and last month’s journal shrine quilt. I also have an art doll to show (I know! Shocker!) I will also have results from 2 online classes I am taking to further my quilt art.
So I will update on the weekend when I get home. I am planning to run a little contest soon too. So much fun to be had!
New York Comic Con
Hot on the heels of my chosen artform’s huge show, I go to my profession’s second largest US show, New York Comic Con. I don’t talk about it often on my blog, but I do work in the comic book industry.
There were many highlights of the show, but I was mainly at our company’s booth working the machines I was there to demo.
I did see a comic blogger that I read very often first thing on Friday morning before the show opened in the restroom. I recognized her from the enormous picture of herself in her blog’s banner. I said hello, asked her if she was Valerie. She was a bit flustered, I think she was shocked to be recognized. I told her I read her blog, and said that I recognized her from her picture on her blog. (She did blog about getting a haircut for the show even..) Her version of events are here.
Anyway, I thought she was very nice. Would have loved to talk to her more, about women in comics who are not creators or editors or artists, but those of us behind the scenes making a big difference in the industry just the same. My point of sale project is pretty important, at least I think so, and as a long time fan and a woman in comics, I would like to had that conversation, even to see where it would have gone. Maybe some other day. I did finally join Friends of Lulu…
Anyway, I am in Baltimore until Wednesday, so no quilt art updates until I am back…
Name dropping- Mimi Dietrich
I forget sometimes that I was mentioned in a book, and that my work appeared in it, though it’s indistinguishable from other people’s work in the book.
In the year 2000, I was taking Mimi Dietrich‘s famous Baltimore Album class at Seminole Sampler in Catonsville, MD. This was an expensive class, but met once a month for 12 months, and by the end of it, you were supposed to have finished 12 blocks for your album quilt.
During that year, Mimi was writing her Bed and Breakfast Quilts book. I worked on one of the applique blocks in the book, and my name appeared as a credit.
Mimi is one of the sweetest and nicest people you will meet, and there is no better applique teacher than her. I refer to my “BAQ” class notes all the time.
Sad proof that I am not, in fact, perfect.
For the final pomegranate for this month’s theme, I wanted to do something that was based on a block I found in the interweb that is quite old. This quilt was auctioned by Four Corner Quilt Gallery, and for a while, i guess you can see more of this quilt here.
I adapted this antique pattern into the this weekly quilt. This has all of the Jennifer Sampou swirls fabrics in it, of which, I discovered, I have quite a bit of. In fact, the background fabric is the background of my ever-unfinished Baltimore Album Quilt. (Yes, I have 11 blocks and 1/4th of the center completed, which I took Mimi Dietrich’s Baltimore album class in the year 2000, which is when most of them were finished) Now the antique quilt this pattern was adapted from had little hearts under neat the leaves of the stem, because the pomegranate is also known as the “love apple”. Now I wish I would have added them.
Now, here is the first attempt at this… and I did spend time hand appliqueing this block. When it was done, it was just… wrong. So I will leave it for now, and get to quilting it for some other reason some day.